Classified documents in boxes at the Mar-a-Lago ballroom.
It’s now Saturday June 10th, 2023. Kia ora! Post indictment.
Boom boom boom!
So much is happening: Donald Trump’s indictment on federal charges; Boris Johnson’s resignation as a Member of Parliament in the UK; and Prince Harry’s next half-day in court. The latter falls off the radar: while I was scouting round this morning for hearing wise heads pontificate about Trump’s (and his aide Walt Nauta’s) indictments, I learnt that Boris Johnson had resigned as a Member of Parliament. Accordingly, Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart rushed into action with an Emergency podcast: credit to them for their fast reaction. Lawfare has also done an emergency podcast: I’ve listened to part of it.
I am initially shocked to see just what Trump’s exposure may be: his extreme casualness in terms in handling the documents he held on to – for example, stacks of boxes on the ball room stage at Mar-a-Lago, then moved to a bathroom; it just doesn’t get any better. James O’Brien, an anchor on LBC Radio, claimed he wasn’t as shocked as he expected to be at Johnson’s resignation: he struggled to remember all the times when he’d been shocked by Johnson’s actions. It’s worth noting that Trump and Johnson’s speeches of justification sounded very similar; both were rambling; with both, whatever had happened was everyone else’s fault, certainly not theirs. Neither takes any responsibility for their actions. We still don’t know who Trump may have shown documents to, or even which documents are still missing. As usual, he reinforces his own guilt by whatever he says. With both of them, countless careers have been destroyed as anyone who selflessly did things for them has suffered indignity, even serving prison time, (viz. the case of Michael Cohen).
It’s now Sunday June 11th.
I am further shocked as republican leaders rush to support Trump. Certainly, it’s a shame to indict someone who has been president, however unfortunately; then again, former presidents didn’t do crimes! There was no need to indict them, however much one may have disagreed with their policies. Goodness knows, America took a very long time to indict Trump; now he faces two court cases, Alvin Bragg’s one in New York as well as the Mar-a-Lago documents case; he’s also been found liable for sexual assault on E. Jean Carroll. He’s known to be in considerable legal peril, and it’s very questionable whether any more people will be prepared to go to jail for him. The Georgia D.A. of Fulton County, Fani Willis, has still to make her rulings. Evidently the word “imminent” can mean different things!
Meanwhile, in the UK, another Tory ally of Johnson’s has resigned, Nigel Adams, as well as Nadine Dorries. This is damaging for Prime Minister Sunak, if one cares about UK politics.
It’s very cold today. There was a frost this morning- I could see the frost on the fields outside my bedroom window, and the haze that arises sometimes as the sun gradually warms things up. It is fine and sunny today, but it remains very cold. I got out one of my thermal tops this morning, to wear under a warmer jersey; I wore a woollen jacket over this and got out some leather gloves. I went to church, which was lovely – but the coldest I have experienced it. I normally don’t find it really cold there.
It’s Monday June 12th.
This morning it’s cold again, although not frosty. Last night was very cold; I threw an extra duvet on my bed before retiring, but then woke up too hot during the night! But it was pretty cold again this morning. I didn’t go to my exercise class in Ngaio; it’s been really full lately, and it’s quite hard to get there and back too.
But I did visit a friend for lunch. I really enjoyed that. I really miss my old Tai Chi class, and I would like to find a similar one.
The weekly Covid 19 report is out again: it reads as follows: there were 9883 new cases of Covid-19 reported in Aotearoa in the week to Sunday and a further 37 deaths attributed to the virus. A total of 4722 were reinfections. The seven-day rolling average of cases was down, to 1408.
There were 228 people in hospital at midnight Sunday, with seven cases in intensive care.
Last week, 12,028 new cases were reported and a further 59 deaths attributed to the virus. We’re not told the ages of the people who lost their lives.
This afternoon I listened to a new episode of The Rest is History podcast. To celebrate Pride Week, this episode is about the Roman emperor Hadrian and his favourite young man Antinous. Next episode will be about Oscar Wilde, whose relationship with “Bosie” (Lord Alfred Douglass) and other gay men is being covered by the British Scandal podcast. As I did a paper about sexuality as part of my BA Honours in Latin degree, I find this episode extremely interesting, focussing as it does on Greek sexuality in particular. This reminds me of the awful labels in the remodelled Ashmolean Museum in Oxford when we visited in February 2010, such as “Paedophile and victim”. Really, it’s so much more nuanced than that: the sexual relationship between an older man and a young man would be regarded as a crime today, but it certainly wasn’t back in ancient times. Older men were certainly not regarded as paedophiles at that time.
It’s now Tuesday June 13th.
This morning I went to a Bible Study. Then I caught a bus into town, and had lunch at Smith the Grocer Café: a smoked salmon bagel, and an oat latté. Then I went to the lovely Wallace Cotton shop, and bought a hot dish handler (oven mitt?), the existing one having worn through. After that I went to Unity Books and had a lovely browse, before catching a bus home. Actually the No 1 bus to Johnsonville West arrived at Johnsonville Library/ Waitohi just before the No. 19 bus departed – the first time they have coordinated, in my experience. The No. 19 bus had its screen working, showing and announcing each bus stop, and the one after it. Well done, Metlink! Very helpful.
There’s still lots of news. The Ukrainian counter-offensive is underway, and of course most people and most media expect instant results. It’s been compared to the D-Day landings of allied troops in Normandy in a huge and risky operation, and I guess it is just that – a huge and risky and probably a lengthy operation.
In the US, Trump is due to be arraigned tomorrow in Miami on 37 counts of mishandling classified documents; few Republicans have dared to come out against him, but his former Attorney General, Bill Barr, has surprisingly to the US Department of Justice’s defence saying “If even half of it’s true, then he’s (Trump)’s toast”, and claiming Trump’s not a victim here. The indictment is truly damning, and those who excuse Trump seem to have no sense of the national security danger to the US, and to individual spies and their networks, to say nothing of the Five Eyes network which includes New Zealand. Can the US be trusted? Indeed, one may well ask.
The indictment in full is now recited on several networks: the Bulwark, and MSNBC, free for anyone to listen to. It is alarming to hear just how casual Trump (and his staff) was/were about these precious documents – they were kind of like “his precious” thing(s). Ben Wittes of Lawfare encouraged us to “Read with me”, but only the preview was free! Bad luck, Ben! Trump’s staff compared his approach to the schizophrenic mathematician John Nash as portrayed in the film A Beautiful Mind.
In other news, it seems that Erik Prince, a co-founder of Blackwater, and brother of Betsy DeVos, Trump’s Education Secretary, and a very dodgy character, is being pursued by the DOJ in the US and by Austrian authorities. We await the outcome of that.
And then Chris Luxon has made another foot-in-mouth stupid comment. After saying people i.e. women should have more babies (he was only joking, apparently), has said New Zealand is a “negative, wet, whiny, self-obsessed nation”; well that may be his opinion, but he’s extremely unwise to share it. Also, the weather is the weather no matter which party is in charge of government. In addition, he now wants to annul the law he formerly supported allowing greater building density in large properties. He certainly has a conflict of interest here, seeing that he owns several properties. Former Prime Minister Ardern was recently honoured with title of Dame in the King’s Birthday Honours List: she was very gracious about accepting this, but really it’s standard procedure for anyone who was Prime Minister to be granted a title in this way. The media seem to be treating this with great surprise.
It’s now Friday June 16th.
Well, it’s been a busy few days, with the counter-offensive by Ukrainian troops against Russian forces; reading in detail the indictment of charges against Donald Trump: this involves understanding how serious the charges against him are; wondering what happens next; measuring Republican reactions to how serious these are; and assessing the implications of Judge Aileen Cannon being assigned to this case, while we wait for other charges to drop. And then there’s Boris Johnson, who resigned as a Member of Parliament before the Covid Enquiry reported that he had deliberately misled Parliament. This is a really serious business, and is being taken as such. People whose loved ones died during the Covid 19 pandemic had to beg for this enquiry to be held, and now their grief is renewed, and is even worse since the cynicism of the then prime minister is revealed. I guess we all remember the photo of Her Majesty the Queen sitting alone, all in black, at Prince Philip’s funeral; evidently there was a party at 10 Downing St the night before.
Although we all knew Boris was a perpetual liar, it’s tough to have it confirmed, and then to have some Tories supporting him! People are shocked too to learn how un-serious those in charge were when hundreds pf people were dying from Covid 19, and most of the world in some kind of lock down to reduce contact between human beings while they sought to keep medical staff safe by tracking down PPE and trying to trace contacts.
I guess the media are now choosing less flattering photos, but the site of Boris in shorts is not attractive, and one wonders just what Carrie sees in him. Evidently she’s expecting their third child. Then again, I don’t find Trump attractive either. I listened to a podcast (The Bugle) which noted that Boris put the “lie” in liability.
In the US, Trump faces very grave charges over his handling of government documents, many of them classified. While people like Mike Pence are legitimately concerned about their children in the military, no one seems to care about countries like New Zealand who as part of the Five Eyes network may well have been directly involved. And what of Trump’s Bedminster golf course in New Jersey? And who did he show documents to? They could easily have been photographed. Either the extent of possible exposure is enormous, or the precious intelligence, nuclear secrets, and war plans are worthless.
Here are links to two articles about Boris Johnson from the Guardian:
and
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/16/tory-mps-boris-johnson-partygate-report
There is a lot of discussion about the similarities between Silvio Berlusconi, who featured hugely in Italian politics, but who died recently, and Trump and Johnson: all corrupt, and each using aspects of their so-called democratic governments to maintain their dodgy if not outright criminal behaviours. Now Berlusconi has died, and Trump and Johnson are being called to account, at last; how effective will this be? Who knows. I guess time will tell.
That’s it for now. Slava Ukraini! Ngā mihi nui.
Classic Barbarian 